Ableton Forum

I searched the volume meter in the ableton manual to no avail!

Do you guys have documenation on your metering technology. Like how you guys do it? I'm curious about what frequencies trigger a high "volume level" Is it the loudest of the highest decible frequency or is it a combination of the less audible ones?

Documentation appreaciated!

My understanding is that Live's master level (as indeed with all DAWs) is a peak level meter.

All frequencies have the potential trigger a "peak" above 0dB level if they are boosted enough... which will cause digital clipping.

Does that help? i'm not exactly sure of the point of your question?

Is shows the overall volume level of all the sounds you are playing. It turns red when is clipping. To avoid clipping you can use a Limiter, Compressor or a Multiband Dynamics effects. Remember that 0db is the first point of clipping, so you have to keep your levels below 0db.

jjsauma wrote:Is shows the overall volume level of all the sounds you are playing. It turns red when is clipping. To avoid clipping you can use a Limiter, Compressor or a Multiband Dynamics effects. Remember that 0db is the first point of clipping, so you have to keep your levels below 0db.

You guys both told me different things!

It is a mixture of all the sounds or just the highest peak?

Lets say you have one audiotrack, and your looking at its volume meter... you also have a spectrum analyzer on the track. Now... Is the volume meter going to sum up all the frequencies on the spectrum in order to get an output, or is it just going to take the loudest one?

Thank you!!!

The volume meter is a signal level meter. It measures the decibel of a signal.
The peak level meter is able to detect a peak of any duration within the audio frequency range.
This meter does not give you any info about the frequencies of a signal.

The volume of a signal should not be mixed up with the frequency spectrum of a signal.
To display/measure the frequency spectrum, use an spectrum analyzer: Spectrum.

I hope this helps.

Best,
Christian

soundremedy wrote:

jjsauma wrote:Is shows the overall volume level of all the sounds you are playing. It turns red when is clipping. To avoid clipping you can use a Limiter, Compressor or a Multiband Dynamics effects. Remember that 0db is the first point of clipping, so you have to keep your levels below 0db.

You guys both told me different things!

It is a mixture of all the sounds or just the highest peak?

Lets say you have one audiotrack, and your looking at its volume meter... you also have a spectrum analyzer on the track. Now... Is the volume meter going to sum up all the frequencies on the spectrum in order to get an output, or is it just going to take the loudest one?

Thank you!!!

I actually don't think we're saying different things at all...

but to clarify: you could have a single sound source (like a kick drum) that has a resonant frequency at 80Hz, that peaks at -1dB and a bunch of other frequencies that range from -12dB to -6dB, that make up the overall timbre of the sound itself.

Frequencies don't "add" or "multiply" each other in terms of how loud the sound gets.... just how loud a sound is perceived.

So, a kick drum that peaks at -1dB is going sound 'softer' than a burst of white noise that peaks at -1dB.

but both will register -1dB on the peak level meter.

Case closed. Thank you very very much for helping me get to the bottum of this.

Best,
Tony